There’s a major shift happening in ad agency creative departments. Projects that were typically assigned to a team of two creatives are being assigned to a group of people—perhaps five, ten or even twenty people—that sit in a room and create ideas together as one unit.

This is considered to be a more collaborative approach to creating big ideas. In my view, this approach is born from good intentions, but it presents serious problems. As mentioned in an earlier post, collaboration is valuable, but not as a replacement for the traditional teaming of one art director and one writer to generate ideas.

The reason becomes very apparent when raw ideas begin to take form. In a group, minor differences of opinion become giant disagreements. Everyone seems to have a different view of how to craft an idea. And when there are more than two people, it can get really ugly. At which point, the only way forward is to split up or compromise.

Our individual creative vision—that magical property that makes each of us so unique and interesting—gets lost when we’re forced to collaborate in larger groups. It’s when too many cooks spoil the pot.

But there’s an additional downside: lack of ownership.

If you own a project then you are responsible for the outcome, which means your personal reputation is on the line. This creates an unparalleled sense of commitment and zeal, which are two things absolutely necessary to withstand the forces of mediocrity and carry your idea to the end zone. It also inspires a higher level of craftsmanship.

In the traditional arrangement of two creatives—one art director and one writer—there’s a kind of beauty. They brainstorm ideas together, but ultimately each person is responsible for their role. Even though they butt heads once in a while, they work it out. Typically, whichever person is less determined about a certain point of difference eventually concedes to the other. Sometimes it’s the art director and sometimes it’s the writer. In a good relationship, they give and take. Most of the time the outcome is good.

Contrarily, in the group scenario, it’s often unclear who will execute what. Or how. Usually what happens is this: the A-type people get bossy, arguments ensue, people take sides and stalemates occur. Eventually, they break up into smaller groups or pair off, then compete with each other instead of working together. I wish it weren’t so, but it’s just human nature. 

Additionally, when you put people with different disciplines into the same room and ask them to create ideas together, they don’t easily mesh. Everyone begins to think and communicate in a way that reflects their individual skill sets. Almost as if everyone is speaking a different language. 

Even worse, people quickly gravitate to their computers and start comping who knows what. The graphic designers start finding pretty pictures and setting type. The web designers start scrolling through FWA for inspiration and building parallax test pages. Art directors start scribbling ad concepts. Writers start typing headlines and writing manifestos. Others do their thing, whatever it is. But nobody works toward a central idea because they never came to agreement. 

The truth is, locking a bunch of people in a room together and expecting great ideas to happen, is just plain naive.

A better way is to assign a team—an art director and a writer—to each project. Their sense of ownership and empowerment will compel them to create better ideas. If they underperform and disappoint, then fire them. This will help maintain a really high standard in your creative department, where every team is an all-star team.

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If you absolutely must have a large group of people participate in an important brand effort or a new business pitch, read on.

1. Ask everyone in your creative department to dream up platform ideas only. A platform is basically a tagline or campaign theme line, followed by a short paragraph rationale. Each platform fits on a single sheet of paper. Text only, no pictures.
2. Get the best platform(s) approved all the way to the top decision maker, such as the CMO and/or CEO.
3. Brief the creative department on the chosen platform(s) and organize an initial brainstorming session with everyone together (collaboration at its best). This session will inspire a lot of deep thinking. Encourage everyone to participate and say anything. No idea is bad at this point. Write them on large pads of paper and pin them to a wall. (It’s been discovered that playing a round of Pictionary first will get people in the right frame of mind, so they feel comfortable blurting out anything without embarrassment.)
4. Break into small groups (preferably pairs of two people; three at most) and concept ideas using the brainstorming session wall for inspiration. Provide as much time as necessary. 
5. Arrange another group meeting with everyone in attendance and ask each team to present their ideas to the ECD in the room. (Do not create approval layers prior to the ECD reviewing the work. It filters out potential diamonds.)
6. Choose the best ideas and then assign CD’s to manage and refine them (or just keep it flat and allow everyone to present directly to the ECD).

I’ve experienced many different creative development processes and this is best way to utilize a lot of people on one creative project or pitch. It avoids ego clashes, personality clashes, unnecessary layers, compromises and frustration. Everyone gets their say. Everyone gets their spotlight. Everyone is happy. And, of course, the ideas are better.

That said, my favorite approach to creative development is to assign one team of highly talented creatives to every project and let them own it. There’s a reason why it has worked well for 40-plus years.

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Creativity

7:32 AM

There’s so much conversation these days about collaboration. More than ever, creative heads are pushing for more groupthink. Ad agencies are redesigning their creative workspaces into open floor plans to foster cross-pollination of ideas.

They are even using it as a new business sales tool, positioning themselves as highly integrated, multicultural, multinational, multi-disciplined ecosystems that produce more relevant, more inclusive ideas.

This is both true and false.

Collaboration in an initial brainstorm session can indeed inspire more insightful, more inclusive, more relevant ideas. But great ideas are almost never born this way. It’s important to know why.

Truly groundbreaking ideas are spawned in the minds of individuals. They always have been. No committee ever produced anything of real value. That doesn’t mean that collaboration doesn’t serve an important role. It’s absolutely necessary. But not at every stage of the process.

I’ve always advocated for collaboration and collective brainstorming at the beginning of a project, and then collaboration in the executional phase of a project. But unique visions happen in isolation. You might not like to hear it but it’s true.

Think of ideas as colors. Alone, the color red is vibrant, eye-catching, memorable. But mix it with blue and yellow and green and you get the color of mud. Or the color of poop.

Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. A conversation in a room full of people can help plant the seeds of great ideas. This is when true “cross pollination” happens. But the actual conception of an idea happens afterward, in individual minds. That’s because the best raw ideas are born from a singular vision.

In a perfect world, collaboration would happen at the beginning of a project to serve as an inspirational brainstorming session. Then at the end to serve as an executional operation. But in the middle there must be room for unadulterated, individual expression.

Just think of any innovation, any amazing film, any scientific discovery. Pretty much every game changing idea was born in one person’s head. Most certainly, it was brought to life and often improved with the help of other people who contributed their expertise. But the genesis occurred within the walls of one cranium.

A good example is filmmaking. The best films are born from singular vision and executed by a director who is empowered to make final decisions, despite pressure from outside forces, such as studio executives. Few directors are given such freedom. But when they are, they make movie magic.

In my 20 years working in advertising creative departments, I’ve seen many efforts by well-intentioned agency executives to create a more collaborative creative process, believing that it will generate better ideas. It feels inclusive and gives everybody a warm feeling. But it can be a recipe for mediocre, watered-down work. Ideas by committee are ideas full of compromise.

We need to stop short at disallowing creative teams (or individuals) from working in isolation. Collaboration is great. But it can be an enemy to individual expression—and outright genius—when it’s applied indiscriminately.

The best way to generate great ideas is to give creatives their own space to think and dream. And then empower them with ownership to see their vision through to the end.

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Creativity

9:48 AM

How many times has this happened to you?

The entire creative department is briefed on a new project for a big, important client. Everyone works tirelessly for weeks—concepting, arguing, re-concepting, designing, writing, honing, refining—until a polished campaign is approved by the agency executives. Then it passes through multiple layers of clients until it finally reaches the C-level client, who nonchalantly declares, ”The strategy is all wrong.”

If you’re nodding your head right now, you are not alone. I’ve personally experienced this scenario dozens of times. When it happens, I don’t even get frustrated anymore. I just chuckle. 

The question that everyone asks is, “Didn’t they sell the strategy up the chain first?” And the answer is almost always, no.

Throughout the business world, tens of millions of dollars go up in smoke every year from this common blunder. Not to mention the massive sacrifice of nights and weekends for dozens of very talented workers. 

It’s a debacle that can be so easily avoided, if only one simple principle is employed: sell the strategy up through the chain before beginning creative development.

Not only does this common blunder waste time and money, it destroys confidence in the leaders. Exasperated employees become frustrated and cynical. Which might be even more damaging than the financial injury, because erosion of trust eats at the most talented and ambitious employees like cancer. The senior executives begin to be viewed as obstructionists, hindering individual career aspirations. When that happens, they start seeking employment elsewhere. 

Why don’t highly paid planners, creative directors and account directors learn from these lessons? I wish I knew the answer. Perhaps because the ones responsible for developing the strategy and overseeing creative development aren’t the ones toiling over the work. When everything dies, they simply don’t feel the sting. Or the blame, which they usually direct upwards.

Anyway, I could rant forever but it’s fruitless. Let’s focus on solutions. Here’s one: write the brief and develop a platform before creative development.

More specifically, follow these five steps:

1. Write the brief (and please, make it singleminded).
2. Get the brief approved by the top client (or final decision maker)
3. Ask creative teams to develop platform ideas only. This is key. (A “platform” is typically a tagline, theme line or phrase, followed by a short paragraph explanation. It’s a concise statement to your audience. And it should fit on a single piece of paper.)
4. Get the platform (or multiple platforms, if you’re indecisive) approved by the top client.
5. Develop creative ideas from the approved platform.

Do this and you’ll provide crystal clarity to creative teams. There’ll be less flailing and more focus. Furthermore, the top client will already be primed and ready for the creative solution. 

You’ll also engender trust and respect in your employees which is incredibly important (yet rarely ever considered). But most important of all, you’ll develop the best creative ideas possible. 

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Leadership

9:48 AM

Increasingly, big companies are bringing their marketing efforts in-house. It usually starts with a small, internal design group or a new Chief Creative Officer, which evolves into a whole department full of talented creatives. Inevitably, they ask themselves, “Why do we need an ad agency?” 

I’ll tell you why.

First, let me disclose that I’ve worked in advertising agencies for most of my 20 year career. But, lest you think I’m biased, you should know that I’ve also worked as a freelancer for a number of years, often directly for in-house marketing departments. So I’ve experienced both worlds. 

For years I dealt with this question, mostly in response to clients who wanted to dictate creative ideas. Or change the ones we developed for them. It was frustrating because we were the ones with the expertise. But more importantly, we had something they couldn’t acquire: objectivity.

Expertise is one important reason why a company should have an ad agency on retainer. But since agencies can’t corner the market on talent, I’ll focus on the importance of objectivity. This is a critical attribute that is totally unobtainable by in-house marketing teams.

Every company is like a new mother who thinks their baby is the most beautiful child in the world. Even though everyone else can see it is not. If you work in-house, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to distance yourself from your brand in order to really see things objectively. 

Why am I so sure? Because, ultimately, your allegiance is to your paycheck. Which means it’s virtually impossible to take risks that will enable your brand to be surprising and innovative.

Pretty much all company men (and women) are bobbleheads. Even when they think they’re independent, analytical, contrarian thinkers, who aren’t afraid to disagree with their bosses, they eventually conform to senior management. Especially when their job is on the line.  

I know because it takes a former bobblehead to know a bobblehead. I’m a creative person by trade and we creatives are anti-conformists by nature. However, when you come home at night and look into your toddler’s eyes or kick back on your designer sofa with a fifty dollar bottle of wine, you get an eye-full of what you’re risking if you push senior management beyond their comfort zone. And so you ease up. I don’t like to admit it, but it’s true. It’s human nature.  

There are only a handful of people on the planet that are seemingly immune to the fear of getting fired or making a mistake. These people are rarely ever employed as company men. They work for themselves as entrepreneurs. Everything they do is risky. It’s a way of life. 

You might ask, since an ad agency is essentially employed by a company as well, aren’t they just as much afraid of getting fired and therefore less apt to push their clients into an uncomfortable place? Well, yes, the bad advertising agencies do whatever their clients want.

However, the good ones don’t. For this reason: their reputation is more important than the monthly retainer. In the long run, clients will come and go. But an agency’s reputation is their livelihood. That’s why the best ad agencies say the tough things. They argue with clients. They push them. They even resign accounts. All because they have integrity. 

You’re welcome to disagree with me, but you’d be wrong. Ask yourself, do you respect a “yes man”? If you can honestly answer yes, I don’t believe you.  

Nobody respects a yes man. We all value the truth, even when it hurts our ego. Because after the sting wears off we appreciate the critical comments and can make strides to improve ourselves and correct our course. That’s the power of objectivity.

When you’re an in-house company man, you’re staunchly loyal to your company. Er, um, your paycheck. So the only way to benefit from true objectivity is to retain an ad agency. If they’re good, they’ll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And that is worth much more than what you pay them.

Long live great ad agencies that have the courage to stand for something. And long live great clients that are brave and trusting. Together they can move mountains.

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Clients

6:55 PM

Anger is generally considered to be a negative human attribute. But I’ve come to see that—not only is it a positive attribute—it makes the world better.

There’s a misconception that if you’re calm and “in control” of your emotions, that you are to be admired and commended. And if you’re more reserved then you’re more rational, and therefore make the world a kindler, gentler place.

Professors, lawyers, CEO’s and politicians have become increasingly calm and reserved over the years, rarely ever raising their voices (except for effect). If one of them becomes angry, they’re labeled as irrational and people become suspicious. (Remember what happened to Howard Dean?) However, when people maintain constant composure, we assume they are more stable and trustworthy. 

What a ridiculous assumption. 

A few weeks ago, I got passionate and very animated about something and my wife asked, “Why are you getting angry? Relax.” I thought to myself, what has happened to us? Why are we so averse to expressing a little anger?

I remember watching a TV documentary and they showed some really old footage of Theodore Roosevelt giving a presidential speech. He was animated and emphatic. He waved his fist around. I thought, “Wow, presidents were different back then!” I can’t imagine our current president filled with such conviction and becoming that emotional.

It seems we’ve become so obsessed with physical demeanor and verbal delivery, we often overlook the content. We’ve become more concerned with appearances than inner motives. Why?

I believe we’ve overreacted to our less gentle parents and grandparents—who were sometimes violent disciplinarians—by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many of us vowed to behave differently, even to the extent that some parents now refuse to discipline their children in any way whatsoever. So the pendulum has swung completely to the other side. 

The truth is, anger and violence are two totally different things. Anger is an emotion, violence is an action. Anger can be helpful, violence can be harmful. Anger is simply a result of feeling something inside, then expressing it. You can be angry and still perfectly rational. 

The problem with perpetually calm people is that you don’t know their inner motives. They wear a perfect poker face like emotionless mannequins. 

Let’s be clear, when anger becomes irrational and violent, it’s bad. But anger can indeed change the world.

Anger inspires action. It inspires change. It propels passionate people to snap out of their complacency and indifference, and do extraordinary things. It helps make the world a better place for all.

Anger compelled Martin Luther King to lead a non-violent charge to speak out against racial hatred and help achieve civil rights in America.

Anger compelled Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn to write an incredibly powerful book, Half The Sky, to raise awareness of severely oppressed women around the world. Which I highly recommend reading because it will make you informed (and angry).

Anger compelled Robert Kenner to create the documentary, Food Inc., to help inform the world of the disastrous health and environmental consequences of America’s industrialized food system. He also launched a website called, FixFood.org.

Anger compelled Cesar Chavez, Bob Geldof, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and thousands of others too numerous to name. 

How do I know that anger was the active ingredient in the minds of these people? Because only the emotion of anger can literally eat someone from the inside out and compel them into activism. Despite fear.

Some people avoid anger for health reasons. And there’s some evidence to support that. However, I believe the supposed health risks can be mitigated by a healthy diet, plenty of exercise and quiet meditation (whatever kind you’re into).

The world is definitely broken. And you can do your part to help fix it. Just allow yourself to get angry. It’s powerful fuel. Become a passionate person and take action. Don’t be afraid to raise your voice once in a while.

I’m beginning to view my passionate, angry, ranting friends differently. I’m realizing that they are actually more trustworthy than the rest. They might wear their emotions on their sleeve, but I like that they’re not holding anything back. There’s no guile. No pretense. I know the real them. And I’m invigorated by an animated person who actually stands for something.

So let’s get some righteous anger about the things that need fixing and transform our spineless, soft-spoken, emotionless culture for future generations. 

(But I say again, please avoid irrationality and violence. It’s counterproductive. Remember, words are more powerful than fists.)

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Note: In case you didn’t know, this is an advertising-focused blog. So I should add here that anger can help transform anything and everything—including the advertising industry. It just needs a few passionate people to show some backbone and let anger move them to action.

Leadership

1:48 PM

It happens all the time. A person or company invents something that changes the world. They enjoy great success and perhaps even follow it up with another big thing. But a few years pass and their ability to innovate dwindles. How does this happen? What transforms a visionary into a has-been?

Innovation is essentially problem solving. We see something broken and we are compelled to try and fix it. It could be a sluggish system, an obsolete product, a void in the marketplace, you name it.

Many people believe innovation is for the young. This may be true for many internet start-ups but generally age has nothing to do with it. Henry Ford was in his 40’s when his company launched the Model T. Martha Stewart was 41 when she published her first book and 49 when she launched her magazine. Frank Lloyd Wright was 70 years old when he experienced his surge of success.

In fact, innovators are increasingly getting older. A study of Nobel prize winners over the last 100 years shows average ages on the rise.* 

So what are the factors that diminish our ability to innovate? Is it because we run out of ideas? Not likely. Ideas are infinite. I believe it’s primarily three things: loyalty, fear and focus. 

1) Loyalty

When you introduce something innovative into the world and achieve great success, you become immovably loyal to your formula. You might even repeat it a few times to greater success. 

The problem is, the world will copy you. Soon your cherished formula is commonplace and no longer innovative. However, this doesn’t stop you from using it over and over because you are hopelessly loyal. You tell yourself, “It worked before and it will work again!”

Some people and corporations are so loyal to their proven formulas, they are like captains who go down with a sinking ship, stubbornly refusing to believe what’s happening. 

Why is it so difficult to abandon formulas and reinvent? Why are brands so loyal to their established image, even when it becomes stale? Why does every great musician seem to become boring and irrelevant over time?

Very few innovators and artists seem to successfully reinvent themselves after a period of ten or twenty years. They are simply too loyal to the past. But there are additional factors.

2) Fear

When you are young and scrappy and broke, you take bigger risks because you don’t have far to fall. With success comes financial security. But also altitude. The ground looks very far away and you begin to worry about making a misstep. So you fearfully play it safe and stick to your proven formula. Which almost always fails.

Avoiding these two pitfalls is easier said than done. The obvious answer is to stay reckless and abandon stale formulas. And realize that everyone experiences fear—that it’s only threatening if you let it paralyze you.

3) Focus

Following your initial success you try to grow your audience. That means shifting away from your early-adopting, passionate, core audience in order to appeal to the masses. Which usually requires dumbing down your product. Which grows your base but alienates your core. 

This shift in audience focus can bring financial success but can result in eventual disaster. The masses are fickle. They’re not loyal. They are easily drawn away by a lower cost product. So you react by making it cheaper to keep them buying. And so begins a downward spiral. 

That might be an oversimplification, but it’s essentially what happens. Companies get big, then get bad, then fall apart.

These are three powerful forces which cause us to fail. So how do we avoid becoming victims of our own success?

There is one approach which I believe can cure all three ills. There are other names for it, but I call it, The Discomfort Factor. 

The more innovative and unfamiliar something is, the more difficult it is to predict how well it will be received. It could be a huge success or a giant flop. But since there’s no precedent, your uncertainty creates an incredibly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach. This is The Discomfort Factor. (Or, as someone else put it, “Dance with the fear.”**)

Discomfort might just be the key to continued success. If you learn to thrive on it, you are more likely to continually innovate. And if you stick to your passionate, core audience and grow slowly instead of chasing after the fickle masses, you will help ensure longevity.

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*Age and Great Invention by Benjamin F. Jones

http://www.nber.org/papers/w11359

**Quote by Seth Godin

http://bit.ly/1jWvVuJ

Clients

1:37 PM

Technically, a stigma is a mark of shame or disgrace. It gets applied to a person—often unfairly—and is not easily removed. 

Avoiding a stigma is like walking through a minefield. In our hurried age, people make shallow judgements about you based on stereotypes, personality, title, age, even wardrobe. Then they lump you into a category. This can all happen in an instant. 

It’s mostly a result of laziness. It’s taxing on our brains to actually get to know someone thoroughly and discover their hidden talents before forming an opinion about them.

Here are three common stigmas and how to overcome them:

The “in-house” stigma.

In ad agencies, there’s the in-house stigma. Like an in-house photographer or in-house editor. These individuals are generally viewed as not being as ambitious because they don’t work at an independent, cutting edge studio or production facility. Therefore they are assumed to be not as good. This is true sometimes but not always. Either way, it’s a powerful stigma that is unlikely to change. To overcome it: Try looking outside your day job to help establish a better reputation. Take on personal projects in the evenings and weekends and make something great. Or quit your job and seek out a hot, independent company.

The “wallflower” stigma.

Not everyone is a hilarious stand up comedian or life of the party. Some of us are quiet and shy. Which means we are frequently disregarded. People aren't comfortable around us and they avoid conversations. This is all despite the fact that many of the greatest artists and craftsman are socially awkward wallflowers. To overcome it: Learn to start conversations. Read more. Read the newspaper. Read books. Have an opinion and express it. Help your career by being more outgoing and sociable. I’ve had the tendency to be a wallflower but I’ve forced myself to be more outgoing and engaging over the years. And I’m glad I did.

The “uncool” stigma. 

The uncool stigma is probably the most shallow and offensive of all. Your wardrobe, manner of speech and social presence can sometimes determine whether you sink or swim. Personally, I applaud people who refuse to change who they are just to appease the cool police. However, if you feel that you’ve been stuck with the uncool stigma and want to remove it, you can. To overcome it: Use your talents. Do some risky and original work. Make it truly great. Then make sure people see it. It will supplant the uncool stigma over your head. Or you could simply develop a new sense of style. Change your wardrobe and image. It hate to admit it but this has worked for some people. They went from frumpy to hip and everyone seemed to view them (and their work) differently. Just like what happens on that TV show, “What Not To Wear.”

Stigmas are a painful reality. They affect how people view your work. If your raw creative output was the only criteria for judging your work, the world would be a better place. But that’s a pipe dream. Don’t waste time waiting for human nature to change. Refuse to be stigmatized. 

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Career

11:12 AM

What does your physical presence in a room of people say about you? The way you carry yourself, the way you speak, your volume level, your amount of eye contact, your wardrobe, your facial expression, everything.

I’ve been around a lot of people in my career and I’ve always been impressed by people who have an instant presence when they walk into a room. And then they impress even more when they speak.

The advertising industry attracts extreme personalities. Bubbly extroverts, gloomy introverts, arrogant people, shy people, brash and pushy people, and a host of others. There are people who dress like hipsters and people who dress like the janitorial staff. There are smilers, frowners, arguers, whisperers, shouters, jokesters, laughers and painfully awkward people. 

All of these character attributes affect our work. They can hold us back or propel us upward. So when you walk into a room, what’s your presence? When you speak and interact with others, what signals are you sending?

I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years and I’ve taken a lot of mental notes. The things that give people a powerful presence are actually amazingly simple. There’s no voodoo or mystery at all. 

Here is a shortlist of things that I believe make a huge impact on our personal and professional lives. They might seem obvious but, shockingly, most people don’t follow them.

1. Smile. This is one of the most effective weapons in our arsenal. A genuine smile is disarming and friendly. Any tension in the air will immediately dissipate. Plus it’s infectious. It literally compels others to smile back at you. Conversely, a scowl or straight face repels people. It makes them not want to hang out with you after work, because you are presumably a boring or rigid person.

2. Give a firm handshake. It goes without saying, but a firm handshake implies confidence and dependability. To clients it shows you aren’t a pushover. On the flip side, a limp, squishy handshake implies timidity and insecurity. So don’t be afraid to squeeze.

3. Keep good eye contact. It’s easier to do this when you’re listening to someone speak but doing it when you are speaking is powerful. It communicates intensity and conviction. Practice it on your spouse, your friends, your dog, a wall. It’s even more powerful with fewer blinks. One of my good friends uses laser-focused eye contact while he’s speaking and it elevates everything he says. I believe he really means what he says.

4. Give the gift of validation by nodding while others are speaking. It doesn’t necessarily mean you agree, it means you are giving them your full attention and you understand what they are saying. Try this game: next time you’re in a conference room full of people, give validating head nods to the speaker. You will find that their eyes eventually settle on you more than others. This is because you’re giving them what they need: validation. And, surprisingly, I’ve found that it makes it easier to make a rebuttal. Perhaps because they truly feel you heard them thoroughly. After all, most people (especially clients) just want to be heard.

5. Learn the art of small talk. This one didn’t come easy to me. I’ve been shy since childhood. But I’ve learned the power of casual conversation. The key is having something to talk about and there are only three things: (1) Yourself, (2) the other person and (3) topical subjects. It’s easy to talk about yourself but it’s better to get the other person talking about himself/herself. However, the best thing you can do is listen to news radio or read the newspaper (or the online equivalent.) It makes you informed and gives you something to talk about. 

There are many more things you can do, but these five will give your life and career a big boost. If I were to add one more, I would say increase your volume. Many people (including myself) are soft talkers and sometimes get drowned out or interrupted. 

Lastly, the above principles are ultimately only effective if you have something relevant and valuable to contribute. Otherwise, it’s all for nothing. 

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Career

9:27 AM

Everyone knows that layers in any approval process are bad. Just look at what happens when there are too many layers on the client side. And yet we’ve essentially done the same thing within the agency creative department. We’ve made it extremely difficult for exceptional ideas to make it through unscathed. The ones that do make it through are usually safe and full of compromises.

There was a time not too long ago when the average creative department was flat. There was only one creative director (or sometimes a team of two) and then creatives under him or her. The only delineation between creatives was “junior,” “mid-level” and “senior.” But all of them reported directly to the creative director. 

This worked perfectly because everyone had access to the final decision maker. They could engage in conversation, discussing problems and solutions surrounding the work, and save a lot of time. And there were fewer egos and personal agendas involved.

Now, creative departments are bloated with a lot of layers. Creative work starts at the bottom and must run the gauntlet through ACD’s, CD’s, GCD’s before finally reaching the ECD’s. And sometimes it must be approved by the CCO. It’s reminiscent of a scene out of Indiana Jones, where he had to run through a tunnel filled with flying darts, swinging blades, rolling boulders and trapdoors with wooden spikes. This is how great ideas get ruined.

What’s so wrong with layers? Here are a few things.

1. Human ego compels every person in each layer to add his or her own input to an idea running the gauntlet, often resulting in a Frankenstein. Sometimes ideas are improved along the way but more often they are not. 

2. Without direct access to the decision maker at the top, those on the bottom must try to interpret the feedback from the layer above them, which is often cryptic and contradictory. It’s the classic game of telephone.

3. It puts too many internal reviews in the process. If you are briefed on Monday and the ECD’s want to see ideas on Friday, that means the GCD’s must see it Thursday and the CD’s on Wednesday. And if there are ACD’s, they see it on Tuesday. And who knows when the account people or planners get a peek. Probably at the last minute. All of this reduces actual creative development time down to nothing.

4. It filters out great ideas too soon. Middle management CD’s like to curate. Which basically means to kill. The problem is, nobody’s tastes are identical. The tastes and biases of the ECD’s are guaranteed to be different than the intermediate CD’s. So why filter out work that the ECD might see potential in? 

5. It eliminates discussion and debate. Sometimes an idea needs to be talked out with the ECD’s. They might be on the fence with an idea and a few alterations suggested by the creative team can make the all difference. But that’s virtually impossible when they’re not in the room together.

I know some will disagree with me, but in my experience, layered creative departments are totally counterproductive. It’s no different than having a lot of layers on the client side. And every (every) creative murmurs and complains about that.

So where did these layers come from? How did this trend start? Personally, I began to see it about 10-15 years ago. I believe they started appearing and multiplying when agency chiefs discovered that promoting people with titles was an effective substitute for pay raises, and it helped keep creatives from getting lured away by other shops. 

Unfortunately, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner. Every agency has embraced this system and it’s become standard. So these layers are here to stay. The question is, where can we go from here?

Here’s one solution that I believe would make all the difference in the world: Collective CD reviews.

It would work like this... schedule one creative review with every CD-level person in attendance. CD’s, GCD’s and ECD’s. One by one, each creative team comes into the room and presents their work (or collectively with all teams together). Then everyone can make comments and have their say. And the creative team can defend their work and suggest solutions to problems, right on the spot. This way, everyone will truly share ownership and huge amounts of time will be saved.

It’s true, nobody likes big meetings with lots of people. Especially executive creatives. Probably because it’s far easier to kill work when the creatives are not in the room. However, creatives are actually more satisfied and less bitter when the ECD explains why their idea isn’t working. And they develop a much greater respect for the ECD because they say it to their face, with honesty and directness. Plus the creatives get some closure.

This method would lead to (A) better communication, (B) greater understanding, (C) less bitterness, and (D) better work. Streamlining the process can only have a positive impact.

A few years back, when I worked at Media Arts Lab, every creative presented directly to Lee Clow. Even the creative interns. The other executive creatives were standing there as well. It was a group of people roving around a room full of work. And it worked brilliantly. If Lee didn’t like an idea, you heard directly from him. And you could defend your work. Rarely did it change his mind, but at least you were allowed to speak up and hear his feedback in person.

One last thing. In the layered system, there’s a false assumption that a CD must always make a comment or request a change, even if the idea is just fine as is. And that’s totally understandable. It’s natural to desire to make your stamp. And to feel like you’re actually contributing something. But, just know, it’s okay to like something just as it is. You share ownership if you simply champion it. I believe it shows real maturity and confidence when you resist the urge to meddle unnecessarily.

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Addendum

I’ve received some great feedback since posting this blog entry yesterday. One comment from my friend, Annie, provided some more insight. She said: 

“I think one of the issues for these layers is salary requirements. Big agencies can't justify (anymore) the $200k+ salaries to a Senior Writer. The bean counters have to say, ‘oh, this person is important and valued, so they get a title that allows for the inflated salary.’ Titles over the decades have become very important to creatives, too. 'Look what I accomplished Mom by going to that art school!'"

Thanks, Annie, for sharing your perspective. It makes sense. In some cases, the bean counters have had a part to play in multiplying these titles and layers. Which is really a shame, since it has affected the process and the work. 

Of course there are some people out there who will say, “I got promoted with a title but never saw a salary increase!” To which I say, squeak louder and more often.

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Leadership

9:34 AM

Probably every art director working in advertising right now has asked himself/herself, “Why didn’t I choose to be a writer instead?”

As an art director, I’ve probably spent most of my career comping. And most of that time has been spent looking for images. It’s a sad reality and one of the reasons that I’ve become disillusioned with advertising over the years. 

Presentations have increasingly relied upon amazing layouts to dazzle clients. In my early years in the business (in the mid-nineties), it was still acceptable to present sketched comps to clients. This was great because everyone’s attention would be focused on the idea itself. It was impossible to trick any client into buying a weak idea that was obscured by beautiful eye candy.

Nowadays, if you walk into a meeting with simple sketched ideas, the reception is likely to be flat. Everyone expects finished-looking comps.

It’s only natural to try to find someone to blame for this trend. But if you ask me, we art directors can only blame ourselves. 

As highly visual people, we understood the power of beautiful visuals and we used them to gain an advantage. We discovered that our visual powers of persuasion even worked on seasoned creative directors who should have been able to see past pretty pictures, but were swayed anyway. We competitively out-comped the other art directors when multiple teams were assigned to the same project. We stayed up later and later to craft our layouts. And it worked. Our work stood out.

But look where we are now. Everyone expects luscious, high-res comps and incredible graphic design. If we have three days to develop ideas for a creative brief, we spend one day concepting and two days comping. We spend less time brainstorming ideas and more time scouring the web for great images. This has led to weaker (but prettier) ads.

I don’t think we can put the genie back into the bottle. What’s done is done. We can only look forward. The future lies in ad agencies building studios full of young graphic designers that specialize in making stuff pretty, so art directors can spend their time directing not designing. This is how it’s typically done at agencies in London. And at certain agencies like Wieden+Kennedy (or so I hear).

I do think it’s a valuable skill to be able to craft beautiful stuff. It’s empowering. But it doesn’t make bad ideas better. Sometimes it’s only a façade that hides shallow work.

I would love to see creative directors try something refreshing. Instead of expecting highly produced comps when reviewing ideas internally, CD’s should demand to see only sketched comps. It’s a true test of the power of an idea. The make-up and lipstick can come later.

I’d also love to see agencies remake their studios by filling them with young, talented graphic designers who are dedicated to comping. Perhaps treat it as a bootcamp for newbies, who eventually transition out of it and become fully-fledged art directors (knowing that it’s not very rewarding to spend your time “wristing” other people’s ideas, so nobody wants to do it for very long.)

Things won’t really change until CD’s start demanding changes. Demanding that their art directors spend more time concepting with their writer partners. Demanding more emphasis on raw ideas. Demanding that they stop using beautiful layouts as a crutch.

If you’re a young art director in school and you also happen to be a decent writer, you might consider switching to being a copywriter. You’ll have more of a life. You’ll go home from work earlier. You’ll get more time with your wife and family. You’ll get more sleep.

On the other hand, as an art director, you’re kind of a one man/woman band. Often I’ve worked alone because my writer partner was on vacation or unavailable. And I managed pretty well, since I was able to use my design skills to bring ideas to life singlehandedly. 

Whichever way you look at it, I believe art directors are the hardest working people in advertising. That is, if you measure it by perspiration instead of inspiration. Too bad the majority of ideas never see the light of day. That’s a lot of man hours spent making beautiful clay pigeons. 

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Career Perception

6:36 AM